More example of advertising for the Sunnyside district in San Francisco newspapers in the first years, 1891-1892. (More wacky Sunnyside ads in the first post in this series.)
Note the frequent use of white space, clean-looking typefaces, and asymmetrically positioned text blocks, a bit ahead of their time–favorite features of midcentury advertisers decades later.
Continue reading “7 Ladies and The Great Horned Spoon: More Sunnyside advertising”
After Sunnyside was laid out and lots went on sale in San Francisco in 1891, there were a lot of unusual newspaper advertisements pushing property sales in the new district during that first year. (More wacky Sunnyside ads in the second post in this series here.)
The initial splash took place on Sunday 26 April 1891, with half-page ads in at least three San Francisco newspapers: the Chronicle, the Call, and the Examiner. Continue reading “87 Men and Golden Chances: The Sunnyside advertising campaign”
One hundred and ten years ago, the real estate firm of Rogers and Stone, who had recently invested heavily in Sunnyside lots, took out a huge four-page stand-alone color supplement in the San Francisco Call. It featured an artist’s fantastical renditions of life in the neighborhood. Unsurprising for the world of property sales, the copious text is full of imaginary claims about the future of the City and the prospects of the then-largely undeveloped district.
Continue reading “1909: ‘Beautiful Sunnyside in the Center of San Francisco’”
By Amy O’Hair
Recently a marvelous panorama taken about 1912 came my way. Sparsely populated Sunnyside can be seen in the distance. The image also revealed a remarkable feature from the neighborhood’s past—a giant hillside sign in the style of the one in Hollywood, which was also placed as a real estate advertisement in its day. However, Sunnyside’s sign preceded the more famous one by at least ten years—though of course unlike the one in Hollywood, Sunnyside’s did not last.
